The Central Committee of St.Maarten met on Tuesday December 21st 2010, to discuss the 2011 budget.
The budget for the Ministry of Justice, totalling NAf. 74 million, will not be adequate for St. Maarten to meet the targets it has agreed on with the Netherlands in the four Plans of Approach, Justice Minister Roland Duncan told Parliament during the Central Committee meeting on the draft 2011 budget Tuesday.
The original budget for the Justice Ministry was tagged at NAf. 86 million prior to drastic cuts across all seven ministries proposed by Finance Minister Hiro Shigemoto to balance the budget to live up to yet another agreement with the Netherlands related to the attainment of country status.
Duncan wanted "to make it clear" that Parliament understood that "under the circumstances" the targets to have the police, prison, immigration and internal services functioning optimally as outlined in the General Kingdom Measures would not be possible.
Delving further into his ministry’s budget, Duncan said there was no benchmark by which the set-up of this new ministry for St. Maarten could be measured. Prior to the island becoming a country within Dutch Kingdom on October 10, Justice was the sole responsibility of the now-former Netherlands Antilles Government.
He added that the development and needs of the ministry would be monitored on a day-to-day basis and without a benchmark all efforts would be made to spend the monies allocated "to the best of our ability."
"There are challenges we will have to meet. … We will have to paddle with the oars we have received," Duncan said.
National Alliance (NA) Parliamentarian Louie Laveist took issue with the minister’s brief presentation to Parliament about his ministry. He said the minister had a duty to the people to address them further and explain how their safety and security would be deal with.
Laveist asked the minister to outline how he planned to address crime, youth criminality, women in prison and human smuggling, especially because government has proposed an increase in the turnover tax (ToT) from three to five per cent to balance the budget.
His questions and those posed to Duncan by other parliamentarians will be answered by the minister when the Central Committee meeting resumes today, Wednesday. Parliament is expected to deal with the approval of the budget in a general session on Thursday.
Continuing with questions to Duncan, NA Parliamentarian George Pantophlet said he understood that the minister didn’t have sufficient monies to do all that needed to be carried out in the area of Justice, but pointed out that there were some important matters that needed to be addressed as soon as possible.
These matters include establishment of substations, staffing for the Pointe Blanche House of Detention, backlog in requests for residence permits, and police records.
Democratic Party (DP) Parliamentarian Roy Marlin queried about St. Maarten’s remaining share of the monies given by the Dutch Government for the Netherlands Antilles Safety Plan.
Marlin was also very interested in the minister’s willingness to pursue the establishment of compulsory military service for youngsters with the assistance of the Dutch.
He queried whether the Justice Ministry was seeking to purchase a new border control system and requested, if this was in the planning, that such a system be discussed and coordinated with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Tourism so that data collected would benefit tourism planning.
Marlin also wanted to know about training of police officers and the need for Voluntary Corps St. Maarten VKS officers to have the opportunity to become full-fledged police officers, as many of them already devote much time to the safety of the island.
NA Parliamentarian Dr. Lloyd Richardson wanted to know about alternatives to incarceration and what plans exist to train people who have had brushes with the law to become productive citizens.
NA Parliamentarian Frans Richardson urged the merging of programmes for education, youth and justice to better balance and use limited resources with the aim of saving the island’s youngsters.
